The WRRA Community

Whangaparaoa Environment (1) - Keith Corbett

2005-06-30T10:25:00.000+12:00

A list of proposed Action Issues for 2005/06 was circulated at the recent WRRA AGM. These have been refined, combined and prioritised at subsequent Management Committee meetings, with the floor hereby thrown open for consideration and comment by the membership.

Please therefore use this electronic forum to avail us of your considered opinions and any possible proposals.

Recent years have seen the core of the Hibiscus Coast targeted for rapid urban development - completed, underway, or planned within the soon-to-be-adopted Draft Local Plan. The areas are only too self evident: the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, Silverdale, and Orewa. The main environmental casualty in the first area has been the loss and degradation of "bush" whether of Tea tree (the essential first stage to forest recovery) or of more mature and diverse remnants such as the area east of Matakatia.

On the peninsula the vast majority of the remaining bush up to Shakespear and the Naval base is now zoned for development, and without the prioritised rational pest control measures necessary to counter possums, rats and stoats. Don't forget, this is jeopardising our national natural heritage.

Such direct and indirect loss of our biodiversity - bush and trees, bats, birds, reptiles, native fish and invertebrates - is also supposed to be minimised by national and international obligations delegated down to local councils. Well, it ain't working in SE Rodney!

Modern planning has to be "Sustainable" and indeed that is the main underlying tenet of the Resource Management Act (RMA). This requires prior environmental assessment, and where necessary, conditions on RMA Consents to safeguard against or at least mitigate any adverse effects. This should protect our bush, so why is it failing in SE Rodney, yet far less so in the neighbouring districts of the Waitakere and North Shore Cities?

Firstly, RDC employs only the minimum of necessary ecological expertise. At the same time the RDC's very undemocratic planning system rarely "Notifies" RMA Consent applications, a process which is meant to forewarn local residents and should tease out local knowledge of potentially affected flora and fauna. Because such Consents are then dealt with internally by staff using "delegated authority", even your local Councillors are then unaware of any impending threat. This scenario is worsened by RDC staff reluctance to monitor even the larger developments, and least of all for their potential intrusion into neighbouring bush.

Another reason is that Rodney had failed to maintain any kind of environmental register which could quantify bush loss, although mounting public concern has led to a second RDC undertaking to investigate the actual extent of the problem.

RDC have also chosen not to set up a recommended "Community Board" with whom to liaise on such matters as the environment. This situation is currently exacerbated by our Mayor's well-publicised refusal to recognise or work with our particular Ratepayers and Residents Association, behaviour that further diminishes local democracy.

This links directly with a personalised and anti-environmental stance being exhibited within Rodney's Council Chamber. Here we see a truly unfortunate situation whereby when such threats (or potential solutions) to Hibiscus Coast environment are pursued by our Ward Councillors they are inevitably voted down by an unholy voting alliance of the pro-development Mayor, his sycophants, and a grouping of somewhat red-necked rural types who still seem to be proud of their forebears' taming of our NZ forest inheritance.

A recent example of this grouping's anti-environment stance was the complete rejection of Annual Plan submissions for:

the pro-active protection and acquisition of the better remaining bush areas;

prioritised pest control measures;

the formation of an advisory environental group;

the production of a booklet on the importance and care of bush and native vegetation on the lines of that circulated by the North Shore C.C.

The opposition was led by the Mayor, who quickly stated that the proposals had "no support" in spite of, or because of, Hibiscus Coast Councillors' advocacy.

Rapid urban growth has been allowed to advance without the necessary infrastructure being in place, perhaps most notably roading, amply examplified by the recent Whangaparaoa Road widening farce.

Now we have a cleverly organised campaign for the Mayor's pet Penlink project. While there are other local options yet to be taken to improve traffic flow, we guess that the projected growth rates will eventually end up with some such alternate routing off crowded Whangaparaoa.
But it is more than unfortunate that the presently favoured route is unnecessarily unfriendly to our environment.

While the Mayor publically makes claims that all the Consents are in place to allow Penlink road works to start tomorrow, this is simply untrue. The environmental Conditions have yet to be drawn up, let alone be approved by ARC. It is estimated that one aspect alone will require more than a year’s lead-in time, yet Rodney has neither begun this process nor will apparently recognise the inherent legal constraint.

When the delays click in, no doubt they will try to blame us environmentalists.

Is there any good news? Well hopefully some:-

Rodney's CEO has recently appointed an RMA expert and an environmental planner to assess to what extent public criticism of Consented bush loss on the peninsula was justified. In the end only two recent examples have been investigated but a report is due soon and we anticipate some sensible and independent advice to RDC.

Arkles Bay residents have formed a local group to try to better protect their natural environment; amongst their questions are why a developer's offer to give RDC a single manageable area of excellent bush was declined (in private) and in contrast to Consenting its "protection" within a myriad of future sub-division housing owners.

A partnership of Waitakere and North Shore Cities, DoC, ARC, and Forest & Bird has agreed on a plan to link the wildlife of the Hauraki Gulf islands through to the Waitakere Ranges. The Hibiscus Coast is vital to this via the peninsula and Otaki estuary through the bush belt of Glenvar to Coatesville, but how will the voting go when RDC are invited to join???

As ratepayers and residents, how much do you care?
Please let us know.

WRRA vs. Dark Forces

2005-06-28T20:05:00.000+12:00

PRESIDENT’S INCOMING REPORT

WHERE WE ARE, AND HOW WE GOT HERE - THE LARGER CONTEXT

According to recent news reports, some people feel that the WRRA owes them some explanations. As the President of the WRRA, it is my duty and my pleasure to clarify the situation.

The WRRA and some of its vital supporting volunteers are under attack.

This attack is just the latest action in a war that reaches back beyond the memory of most Hobbits in the Shire. The war concerns fundamental issues of democracy and the control that Hibiscus Coast residents may or may not have over their own future. Specific issues over the years have included representation, reserves, roading, water, sewerage, the intensity of development, preservation of the local environment and beaches, and other public services. Our own Whangaparaoa Hall is one of these services, as is the WRRA, which is fast approaching its centennial. I will tell what I know firsthand, and report what I have been told.

I brought my family to the Whangaparaoa Peninsula in 1989 and joined the ongoing battle over sewerage a couple of years later, becoming WRRA President in 1994 as part of a team led by Ernie Stanley. Ernie was very active politically, and very astute, as future developments would show. He was one of those who helped build Whangaparaoa Hall with his own hands.

Ernie led our team at a time when the WRRA had almost ceased to exist. He marched his band of volunteers into an AGM that was far short of a quorum, and we became the new Committee. Had we failed to do so, had the WRRA dissolved in apathy, the Rodney District Council would have become the owner of Whangaparaoa Hall in 1994. The Hall would likely no longer exist today.

At that time, under WRRA rules, the Hall would have automatically become Council property upon the demise of the WRRA. How this came to be so would be an interesting story, but I was not there so I leave that to others to tell.

The Council wanted the Hall, and said so. As WRRA President, I sat in the Centreway office of a top Council planner and was told that they wanted and expected the Hall to become theirs. I was asked how they could accomplish this most smoothly. I said that only a superior Hall on the same or a better site would do. Since providing a community hall might be seen as a Council responsibility rather than ours, WRRA should not be asked to give away the Hall in exchange for the promise of a replacement hall somewhere, someday. It seemed a bit rich that the Council was asking for a huge donation from the current custodians of the Hall, in exchange for a vague promise to provide a service that it provided to residents elsewhere from rates. The Hall remained WRRA property, and saw continued use as usual. This community ownership is very unusual in today’s world.

Whether the Council had anything to do with the WRRA’s near demise in 1994 must remain speculation, but many who knew the history and the participants felt that this was just one more battle in the same war. In a late 1990s Council plan for the new Town Centre, the Hall site was represented as a carpark.

But that time, Peninsula people won. I rewrote those WRRA rules, disinheriting the Council in favor of regular Hall users and as many community groups as I could think of. We adopted the new Rules at a Special General Meeting in 1995. The Council was not happy about this, and accusations flew then as they are flying now.

Earlier battles over WRRA property had not ended so favourably, and significant real estate ended up in Council ownership. Also, ongoing skirmishes saw the land around WRRA Hall, once a large section, nibbled away. Our current property lines have been beaten back almost to our very walls.

Most recently, the Council simply took part of WRRA’s land physically during their very belated replacement of the old library they were so quick to destroy. They placed construction sheds on our property without notice or consent, and refused to even discuss paying rent. They physically carved away several meters of our private property – the land itself – again without notice or consent.

The WRRA’s section was once three times its present size, and the balance has been lost to officialdom under the Public Works Act. The WRRA has been quite literally losing ground for many decades.

This is the background that explains the formation of the Whangaparaoa Community Trust by four past Presidents of the WRRA, and the transfer of Hall ownership to the safer hands of the WCT. It also explains the bitter attacks on the transfer and on those involved in this latest move to protect the Hall for the community.

Four of us past Presidents of WRRA are the founding Trustees of the WCT, and the WCT cannot be taken over or pushed around as easily as the WRRA. The charitable and tax-exempt status of the WCT will ensure better care and management of the Hall and the preservation of its value for the community into the future. The Hall could not be in better hands. Hobbits and Hall users will notice that the Hall remains available as always, for the good of the Shire.

I suggest that even Hobbits who normally feel that politics is boring or distasteful should pay some attention here, because their money and lifestyles are at stake. This conflict is not just about a few pieces of ground owned by an obscure ratepayers’ association. It is about the future of the Shire. Besides that, the war makes great theater, and even comedy at times.

What can one say about a Deputy Mayor who received not a single vote from the Hibiscus Coast, but who can have his vague charges against Councillor Walker reported on the front page? If he really feels that the Councillor who received more votes than any other from the Hibiscus Coast in both of the last two elections is not representing his constituents, perhaps he should move here and run for office himself.

This looks to me like the politics of personal destruction. Councillors Walker and Watson have been and will be attacked on every front with charges that eventually turn out to have no merit, but which still serve the headline-grabbing, energy-consuming purposes of the attackers. It seems clear to me that these Councillors’ real offense is championing the concerns of the people of the Hibiscus Coast, and especially the Whangaparaoa Peninsula, against the forces that Ernie Stanley tried to free us from. The WRRA is a fundamentally political organisation that has been involved in dealing with local government and putting forward candidates for far longer than Rodney District itself has existed.

Ernie tried to destroy the Ruling Ring by freeing the Hibiscus Coast from the domination of the rural areas, whose Councillors outnumber ours. They do not need to sit for hours in Paninsula traffic jams, and they usually know little and care less about our problems, yet they rule our destiny and attack our representatives. Ernie had the signatures he needed for a referendum on independence, but his effort was stopped short of the ballot box by the Council itself.

Concerned Hobbits need not memorize a list of the Dark Lords’ names, nor keep careful track of their minions, in order to follow the action. They just need to notice who is defending the WRRA, the WCT and the Hall, and who is attacking the defenders. They just need to recognize the awful force of the Ring of Power being wielded by those who can use the Hobbits’ own rates payments to attack the unpaid volunteer defenders. The attackers have recently done exactly this, enriching distant lawyers with most of $20,000 local dollarsfrom our Shire. But the Hall remains ours.

This sketchy outline, already too long, could be far longer, and every paragraph could be expanded into a chapter. More details will appear on the WRRA website when we manage to get it operational again.

The role of the WRRA remains what it has always been: to work for the good of the community in areas where the regular local government fails to perform well enough, and to work to improve local government. Currently there are many areas that need attention, but dark forces appear to be more concerned with power struggles and maintaining control than with providing good government or democratic representation. Long years after our Council was disbanded as dysfunctional, we on the Hibiscus Coast have not yet regained the representation we had then: a community board or committee. Our representatives are consistently outvoted and often derided by representatives from elsewhere.

Our sympathy goes out to the innocent victims whose lifestyles have become collateral damage in this war. We too have other priorities in our lives, so we understand well that not everyone can be on the front lines. It is unfortunate that the dark forces controlling certain officeholders sometimes extend the front lines to our very front doors, leaving us no option but to become involved. We hope that people will take the trouble to discover the real nature of this war, because those who do are likely to join us.

Tom Parsons,

President, WRRA

Press Release of June 23, 2005

2005-06-28T16:40:00.000+12:00

PRESS RELEASE – THE WRRA HAS A PRESIDENT AGAIN

My name is Tom Parsons, and I am the new president of the Whangaparaoa Residents and Ratepayers Association. I have been on the Committee for the past several years, and I was WRRA President for a couple of years in the early 1990’s.

In those days, having a friendly face or two on the Council was only a distant dream. Now that dream is a reality, and a very useful one in terms of information flow and effectiveness. It should be no surprise that the same forces that have worked to disempower the Peninsula over the years are now sniping at the Councillors who represent us. If our Councillors were not doing their job so well, the outsiders who have so often dominated Peninsula affairs would not bother to attack them so vigorously.

This year we have an especially strong committee that includes a number of past presidents and people like Keith Corbett and Mark Colley who have been very active in the community.

Whangaparaoa Hall is in the best possible hands. It is more safely held for the benefit of the community than it has ever been. The Whangaparaoa Community Trust has charitable and tax-exempt status and a constitution and trustees designed to make sure that the hall works in the best interests of the community.

The WRRA is now able to focus on Whangaparaoa issues because it no longer has the full burden of the ongoing administration of the hall, and most importantly, does not need to defend it against predators. Just recently, the Council simply took part of WRRA’s land physically during their very belated replacement of the old library they were so quick to destroy. They placed construction sheds on our property without notice or consent, and refused to even discuss paying rent. They physically carved away several meters of our private property – the land itself – again without notice or consent. The WCT will be better able to deal with such situations than the WRRA has been.

Mr Brian Smith is this year’s WRRA appointee to the Whangaparaoa Community Trust, which now has five members. While in general I can’t speak for the other board members of the Whangaparaoa Community Trust, on this issue I can say that we fully intend to appoint another board member. At the moment there is no urgent need, and we very much want to find someone who can contribute some particular strengths and expertise to the trust in what is a voluntary and unpaid long-term position.

WRRA’s honorary auditor understands that we want an audited set of accounts out as soon as possible. We have been in touch with the Registrar of Incorporated Societies, and our difficulty is understood and accepted. We are in no sort of trouble or danger in this regard. Also, it goes without saying that we want to show the legal costs to the WRRA that a number of individuals with the financial support and involvement of the Rodney District Council were responsible for. The formation of the trust was no surprise to these people. It had been a matter of discussion in the WRRA committee for years, and finally came together last year.

Having some of the WRRA committee on the board of the WCT is helpful because the knowledge of the running and maintenance of the hall is carried forward into the Trust. It’s much better to have the two organisations working well together according to their own respective interests.

It is unfortunate that a few people in the community seem unwilling to move on and accept that the changes have been for the best and that both the WRRA and the Whangaparaoa Community Trust are working for the best interests of the Whangaparaoa community. All members of the elected Committee of the WRRA and the WCT board are unpaid volunteers with plenty to do, so it’s pretty tough putting up with the constant sniping that some people seem to want to engage in. The last six months have been incredibly time-consuming and stressful for the WRRA committee and the Trust board, and the complainers themselves are responsible for preventing us from getting to some of the things that they are complaining about.

The new WRRA Committee wants to move on. To this end we will have our website up and running within a matter of days. Together with our upcoming newsletter this should go a long way towards dealing with any misinformation out there. We also plan to make space available on our website for community groups who want to communicate a message or provide an online meeting place for their membership, but who do not have the resources for their own websites. As time goes on, I hope to provide an increasing number of informational services to the community through our WRRA website.

The new WRRA committee is already taking on issues, including saving remaining areas of bush and native trees on the Peninsula, youth issues, Whangaparaoa Road and transport, Gulf Harbour, getting more local reserves, and keeping rates down. In all these efforts, having two committee members on the Council is an advantage to the WRRA and the community.

Tom Parsons,
WRRA President